


and to them all things to overflowing

by betony



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, revisionist myth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 11:48:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betony/pseuds/betony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My Kore, now, she was a child who burned with ambition.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and to them all things to overflowing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ishie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishie/gifts).



> Title adapted from Callimachus, Hymn 6 to Demeter (trans. Mair) (Greek poet C3rd B.C.)

Do you remember, my Triptolemus, how to bring forth your crop? 

I’ve certainly showed you enough times. Seeds are tricky, after all; they take nourishing and care before you simply drop them into the ground. Dry them before Helios’s rays—but not too much!—keep them safe from beady-eyed birds, and tuck them into the soil, safe and warm. 

That’s a good lad. Well done. 

Arion was my first child to leave, and never did I wail for him; not even when his visits dwindled to mad dashes around our meadows, my Kore on his back, laughing. The gods had need of him, his father and his brother both, to be lent out to mortals like a common beast of burden—but though I bore him, I let him go without so much as a reproach. My brother Zeus would do well to remember that when he complains of me. 

Not like that, boy! Till the field straight across, with a steady hand. If you can’t muster up the strength to make your mark on the earth, how can you ever expect to produce anything for you in return? Gentleness has its place, but not here; this is a battle you fight with hunger, and you must win. Keep that in mind. 

My Kore, now, she was a child who burned with ambition. 

I told her once, how weary I was, of bringing forth the fruits and plants and green things of the earth in all times of the year, in rain and summer and snow, for mortals were soft-handed and soft-headed, and if they lacked nourishment, they would perish and offer us no sacrifice. But all good things must come from Gaia, and my grandmother is nothing but stubborn, her grudge against my brother never forgotten. 

“If you tire, Mother, let me bear them instead,” said Kore with a smile, only a hair too eager, “and I’ll keep them safe.” (She is a practical girl. All my children are practical, Plutus and Philomelus and Chrysothemis alike, always ready to squeeze out advantage where they can get it. Sometimes I indulge them, even.) 

I smiled, so sadly, and said: “I would that I could, daughter; but this is my task, and my responsibility alone, and I would have you free of cares.” 

I did not have to say, _unlike me._ I did not have to remind her that while my brothers had drawn lots for the division of the world, we sisters had not; instead we had merely been given dominions, by our brother’s decree rather than that of chance. My daughter knows her history well. 

Kore gave me a sidelong glance, but she stayed silent. But I remembered that look, and I wasn’t surprised the morning when I found her gone out dancing with her handmaidens, and the power of the earth’s bounty slipped from my bedside and gone with her. Unfortunate, though, that Hades spied her with them, too, that she was still in possession of them when he dragged her down. I think— 

Now don’t think I miss you eyeing those flowers, young man; a sweetheart, is it? And at your age? But I can hardly speak; my brothers were barely out of our father’s gullet when they began their courtships, the more elaborate, the better. We laughed well, then; Hera and Hestia and I, until Zeus’s eye fell on Hera, Poseidon’s on me, and Hestia, the wisest of us three, crept back into her hearth. 

Pick your blooms, then, any you choose. Whichever you pluck, they will be beautiful; they are my only riches now. I had a son, Plutus, born to be the master of wealth; but he lives empty-handed now, without even his brother Philomelus’s innovations to sustain him. This, too, was a decree of the gods, who hated him just as they had hated--and murdered--his father. Plutus came to me, only once, to complain of his plight, and Kore wept with him. A kind-hearted girl, my daughter; and fond of her brothers. She never would forgive any slight against them. 

One day Kore came to me and said— 

Well done, Triptolemus! Water them, just like that, and watch over them with all your care; this is the most delicate stage, where anything could mean the difference between a flourishing crop and a barren field. Put all your cunning to work, to coax the start of seedling to grow, to unfurl itself, to stretch out into what it must become. 

Now Kore said to me, “Mother, why will you not put me to work?” and I had to tell her, “because, my daughter, there is no work for you to do.” 

She scowled. “My brothers slay monsters, win praise from mortals, and earn their places in the Elysian Fields, and I? I frolic in the meadows with my maids.” 

I held my hands up, helpless. “Your father thinks you might be well suited to the care of flowers,” I offered. 

“Flowers,” Kore repeated flatly. 

“And perhaps soon, some young man will like the sight of you,” I went on; better to let the girl to expect her fate sooner rather than later; “so he will ask your father for his approval and then bestow his love upon you (or bestow first and ask later) and your only care will be his pleasure.” 

She pressed her lips together until they were white. “And is such a existence all I might hope for, Mother?” 

“Yes,” I said, gently, “and there’s no wisdom in defiance unless you could think to match your father’s power—or even that of his brothers’, for that matter.” 

“Hmm,” said Kore, her mouth twisting in that particular way she had inherited from Gaia of the crafty mind. She walked alone for quite some time that night, and when she came back, “I love you, Mother,” was all she would say. 

I saw darkness in her eyes, and the smell of the Styx in her hair, but her chin was raised high and her eyes were unafraid and unremorseful. I asked no questions. I dared not. 

“I love you, my darling,” I told her instead. “I always will.” 

It is a difficult thing, planting seeds, casting them into the ground and having not a sign of how they fare until the day they peek back into the sunlight, carefully at first, and then more quickly. One day, you see, the plants you grow, will produce seeds one of their own in turn, ones more useful than you could even imagine. Why, it takes no more than six to bring all your plans to fruition, provided your use them carefully. 

They tell me Kore must stay back in the underworld as Queen for half the year still, despite Zeus’s arbitration; and so my bounty must rest below the earth for men and women like you, Triptolemus, to bring up from the earth on your own strength. Hermes brought the news to me, ashen-faced and anxious, asking now would I bring forth harvests to the world. 

And I had to shrug and say: “Tell my brother I am sorry. It is too late. They have gone with Kore.” 

My rage is calmed, but I am helpless, you see, before what my daughter has done, before what has become of her. Perhaps, I added, I should have done as she asked years before, and given over my bounty to her. Perhaps then she—and more importantly to the gods, _it_ \--would still be safe. 

“Yes,” replied Hermes distractedly, “yes. Perhaps it would.” 

He told me this, too: Hades, as a gift to his bride, had given her brother Plutus lordship over wealth; and the new god’s sister clasped his hands, smiling, and told him to scatter it wherever he went, to bring joy to all as she had brought joy to him. Hermes bit his lip, then, like so, as though the stirrings of guilt touched him, and asked, “Are you not pleased now, Lady Demeter?” 

“Not now,” I said, “but I shall be.” 

Planting-time will come soon, after all, and with it, my Kore, loathe though she will be to leave Persephone behind. The Underground might have been the least of the lots that my brothers cast, but it is one of them nonetheless, and as its queen, she stands equal to any of my brothers. But she will be happy to see me; and I will smooth her hair back, and tell her stories, and take her to see her brothers. One way or the other, we will while the days away until harvest comes and she returns underground to send up the nourishment that the mortals will need. 

Ah. Look now, what a fine ear of corn you’ve grown. Now go, lad, take what I have taught you, spread it throughout the world, and bear my blessing. But most of all, never, never forgot what I have shown you today, and never forget what I have effected. 

Let someone, at least, remember.


End file.
